BEDL Notes Jan 30, 2017

BEDL Committee Meeting January 30 8 am

2. Heritage and Arts present base budget - office is for enhancing the life of the citizens of Utah through arts and heritage, includes library, division of Indian affairs, arts and museum, historical society, and department of humanities

They brought a map representing the Mining claims in Tooele county of Utah, and a platte map commissioned by Brigham Young, showing blocks

They also brought Vintage of Northern Italy by James Taylor Harwood a painting representing the beginning of Utah impressionism. It was one of the earliest paintings to be purchased by the Utah Art Council, one of the earliest arts councils in the nation.

Base Budget - 34% of budget is Library, Federal Grants provide a lot of the overhead cost of administering their processes

Utah History - includes antiquities and historic preservation, over 120,000 archeological site records digitized in 3 years, SL Tribune photos, and Digital Utah Newspapers

UServe - Volunteer management training throughout the state, performance measure to have increased effectiveness through training

Question: What is your department doing to measure operational efficiency? (Rep Gardner) Uses salesforce for purchase orders, and grant tracking within the department.

Question: What if any role is the department doing to document the Bear River Massacre? (Sen. Shiozawa) Through the division of Indian affairs the department is working with the Shoshone tribe to commemorate the massacre.

What is the role of the department of the Museum of Natural History? (Sen Shiozawa) designated as repository of prehistoric remains, receives some pass-through of appropriations from the state legislature and federal grants

Tell us about the new competitive grants program (Sen Shiozawa)- hoping to create a category of funding for the largest arts groups in Utah, to free up some funding for smaller arts organizations.

Hoping to have a community discussion in the spring about the possibility of having a state history museum to display state collections

Asked about funding for the Leonardo - Leonardo sometimes applies for pass-through funding through appropriations, but not through competitive granting funds

3. Insurance agency base budget - UT department of insurance oversees insurance throughout the state, contributor to the general fund from their fees. Charged with overseeing the insurances that are domiciled in Utah, Equitable, Fidelity, Bear River, Select Health, responsibility to make sure that they can make good their promises to their customers. Auditing the offices every 5 years, or more often when there are financial discrepancies.

Moved requests online to save money in the department. ACA has created a lot of training responsibilities, and the Utah department of insurance has been recognized with federal grants for their accomplishments. Insurance Premium tax brings in close to $130 million. Recently they have returned a lot of the general fund monies, because of federal grants that they have received.

4. GOED base budget - the role of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development is to facilitate the growth of Utah jobs, They oversee a variety of offices including tourism, broadband outreach center, and sports commission. They are hoping to grow and support Utah businesses in the rural and urban communities of UT. Budget is just under $35 million. Many organizations that receive pass through funding for appropriations.

One of the strengths of GOED is collaboration, they try to connect community leaders and industries. Utah’s economy is strong today because it is diverse: aerospace and defense, energy, outdoor rec, financial services, IT/Software, and Life sciences. There is no fund to recruit businesses until they have paid taxes in the state. In 2016, brought in 14 companies. 9,636 new jobs projected in 2016. Tourism and film generated about $1.15 billion in state and local taxes. 21 productions filmed in UT in 2016. UT is known as #1 best state for business

5. Public Service Base Budget - Manage utilities and make sure that they are safe and regulated for the public, they also use some of the tax collected on telephones to provide service to the blind and hearing impaired

6. RFA - Utah Summer Games - (Rep Westwood, Donna Law from SUU) $50,000 one-time, generates sales tax from businesses in Cedar City, LH Miller is sponsoring, only 3 and a half staff people, hoping to bring out of state dollars into the state Senator Vickers also joined the appropriations request

7. RFA- SpyHop - (Sen. Davis, Kandace Van Brueggen) SpyHop is building a 22,000 sq. ft. media arts center, and requesting $1 million one-time for building. One of the largest and most respected media arts program in the nation. One of seven Adobe catalysts and works in collaboration with them. Students have over 20 languages spoken in the home. 86% of students go to college and go into a related field. An additional $6.5 million will be leveraged from private funding sources. Student, Erasmo, talked about apprenticeship program in which he participated. Rep. Weight commented about the value of a community growing around an organization like SpyHop, and the value of students like Mo expressing their voice. Rep. Moss then told about her being a board member, and the need of a permanent building. Rep. Webb asked about what donations they already have, Van Brueggen talked about the capital campaign and the donations, as well as citing SpyHop’s track record of fundraising. For ongoing, they will increase their annual budget to $2 million, which is about 2/3 funded from grants, and then 1/3 revenue,

8. RFA - Utah Shakespeare Festival - (Sen. Vickers, Fred C. Adams and Scott C. Phillips) requested $150,000 on going, this is the 56th year of the festival. The festival is expanding its season. The festival is economically important to Utah because of the out of state dollars the festival brings to the hospitality industry during the Utah Shakespeare Festival. The third largest Shakespeare festival in the US. 35% of visitors come from out of state. Rep. Weight talked about her attendance of the festival, and talked about all of the first time visitors that she meets when she attends. She also talked about the value of having Equity House at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, supporting professionals in theatre. Sen. Westwood, from Cedar City, reiterated the importance of this program for Utah.